Memories
by shibuya-type girl
Summary: Tai briefly reflects on some of the hardest and most painful events in his life. This is basically the beginning of a larger story that goes into more detail about these events.


**Author's Note:**

**This story is really choppy and incomplete in places, I know. It's really only the start snippet of a larger story that I plan to continue soon, but I uploaded it anyway to see if it could stand alone for now.  
**

_I laugh because I would cry otherwise._

Most people would describe their families as "dysfunctional." But when your father beats you, your mother, and your sister on a weekly basis, "dysfunctional" doesn't even begin to cover it.

He was an alcoholic, too. He'd get drunk and as a result, violent. He was short-tempered even when he was sober, though. He'd stumble in from a night of drinking, start yelling at my mother, then beat her black and blue, leaving her to cry herself to sleep. She wouldn't dare fight back or call the police, because she knew that if she left, she'd have to leave us behind at his mercy. She was so afraid of him...

Then, teeth bared, hands balled into fists he turned to me. And eventually, to Hikari.

"You should have seen that one coming, boy!" a dark, sinister-looking man growled, as a ten-year-old Taichi lay crumpled on the floor, struggling to breathe, clutching his stomach. "You're weak if you can't even take that. I can see right now you're gonna grow up to be a little bitch."

"Get up you little bitch!" the man yelled, grabbing seven-year-old Hikari by the arm and pulling her up from her bed. "Get up and start my breakfast!" He threw her towards the door. Hikari scrambled, eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, shut up!" he growled at her. "You're pathetic! Just like your whore of a mother!"

The thing that sickens me the most, though, is that Hikari and I used to think this was normal. It wasn't until much later that we learned that not all kids go to school with bruises and black eyes.

I just hope that Hikari doesn't still think that's normal—men beating their wives and children. I hope she doesn't end up with a son-of-a-bitch like my father was.

The last straw came when he tried to force himself on Hikari. When he'd held her down and started ripping off her clothes...threatening to kill her if she didn't stop kicking and screaming...

I should have seen it coming. He'd been making snide comments about her for weeks, about how she was growing up to be quite the young woman and how curvy and sexy she was getting, how he'd sooner have her than our fat, lazy mother. Hikari and I shared a room, but once he'd started preparing to make his move on her, he moved me out of there so I wouldn't see him go into her room at night, crawl into bed with her and start touching her.

I knew how she felt. I'd been molested too, by an aunt. My dad's sister, who would take me to a closet and force a hand under my shirt, who would get me to touch her, who would touch me.

"Oh, it's just part of growing up."

"Oooh, you're getting to big to sit on auntie's lap now."

That son of a bitch...

I'd had enough.

I was about fifteen at the time, and about the same size as him, so I fought. I stabbed him. Took a Swiss army knife and stabbed him in the shoulder. He died, of course. My mother hated me for it, and sometimes, I think she still does. But she decided not to call the police. Didn't want to get me into trouble. It was my sister Hikari who called them. She didn't know what had happened and she was worried about Dad. Worried, after he'd nearly tried to kill her! He decided not to press charges, but I still got into a lot of trouble for it.

"Taichi...son..." he whimpered, tears forming in his eyes. "Please don't kill me—d-don't kill me...I never meant it...any of it..."

He had known this day would come, the day when his own son, fully grown, and fully strong, would fight back...

"Bastard! I fucking hate you!" I said to him, my own father. "Get out," I said to him, "or I _will_ kill you." He was gone the next day. I haven't seen the bastard since.

Mom thought it would be a good idea to send me away. She says it's because she didn't want me to get into any more trouble, but the real reason was that she had no job and couldn't afford to support us on her own. She had a sister who lived in America and decided to send me there...as far away as possible.

So I came to America, arrived in San Francisco, barely speaking any English. But I had no choice but to learn, and slowly, I picked it up. From TV mostly. And a few years later, Hikari came too. Mom didn't want it to look bad, just sending one kid, so she sent both of us.

"'Ey, new boy," one of the guys said to me. "Lil' Japanese boy. What's yo' name?"

"Taichi," I said, shyly. "Yagami."

"Boy you one o' them Asian kids with them hard-ass names."

"You can call me Tai for short," I said, looking at his snow-white shoes instead of into his eyes, which were covered by dark sunglasses. This guy looked so...so..._cool._

"Ok, _Tai," _he said, reaching into his pocket. "Man that's a gay ass nickname. My name's Dwayne. But everybody call me D. You ever smoke a joint before, Tai?"

"A joint? What's that?"

"What y'all ain't got no weed ova der in Japan?"

"Weed?"

Dwayne sighed. "I can show you be'an I can tell ya, man." He pulled something small from his pocket, similar to a cigarette, except it looked as though it had been wrapped in paper by hand.

"So," said Dwayne, passing Taichi the joint after taking a drag. "Why ain't you hanging wit' 'em?"

"With who?"

"_Yo_ people."

"Oh, you mean the Asians? Well, they don't like me. Besides," said Taichi, passing the joint to Dwayne, "they are bunch of—how to say in English?-goody-two-shoes."

Dwayne only laughed. "I like you, T.Y.," he said. "Real funny boy."

"This my li'l homeboy, momma," said Nate to Mrs. Jenkins. She smiled down at Taichi warmly.

"Hello, baby," she said. "You hungry?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"Well come on in, dinner is on the table."

It was the best meal that Taichi had ever tasted, the best he'd ever had since leaving Japan. Fried chicken, hot water cornbread, mashed potatoes, and collard greens-he'd never had a fuller stomach in his life.

Nate, Nesha, and Mrs. Jenkins stared in amazement as Taichi practically inhaled everything in front of him.

"You know what, Nate," said Mrs. Jenkins, smiling in amusement, "I think he might be enjoying it."

You know how people are when they eat some soul food for the first time...

I learned a lot from the friends I made, and the girlfriends I had. One Vietnamese girl, one ginger and one really cool black girl. She was my favorite.

She was the type of Asian that didn't speak a word of her language. Didn't hang out with the other Vietnamese kids. (if you dun speak our language, you can't be friend with us.) She was cute, but she was a _total slut. _

No, _she _was a slut. I'm not one to judge when it comes to that kind of thing, and I'm not the type to hold the number of guys a girl has been with against her. I'm not. But this girl hooked up with a bunch of guys _while she was with me. _

I don't do hook ups, and i don't do one night stands. There's way too much risk involved, like getting a girl pregnant, getting a disease, etc. Besides I'm not just going to use some girl. That's how my mom ended up with me. She'd hooked up with my piece-of-shit dad, thought it would just be a one-time thing, and she ended up pregnant and was forced to marry the bastard. You see how _that _turned out. I just can't do that to any girl.


End file.
